Shop Direct, the owner of Littlewoods, had a strong Christmas as mobile sales boomed at its main Very operation.

Group sales increased 6% in the seven weeks to 25 December, beating the wider market for non-food retailers – where sales barely grew – as the company benefited from shoppers switching to the internet last year.

Growth was fuelled by a 17% rise in sales at Very, where transactions on phones and tablets rose by almost a third to make up 63% of all sales. The company did not give figures for Littlewoods, whose sales have declined in recent years, but it said the business performed better than expected.

Shop Direct’s top-selling gift was perfume with 284,000 items sold in that category. Sales of mobile phones increased by 74% and clothing and footwear sales rose 6%, bucking the trend for weak sales at Next and other fashion retailers after the warmest December on record.

Very is aimed at younger, more fashion conscious shoppers than those of Littlewoods, whose mail order business started in 1937. Shop Direct also launched an upmarket sister operation, Veryexclusive, last year concentrating on women’s fashion and accessories.

Alex Baldock, Shop Direct’s chief executive, attributed the group’s success to being online only, without the distraction of stores or catalogues. He said it allowed the company to concentrate on sales via mobile devices, the fastest growing retail channel.

“Christmas 2015 was a record-breaker for Shop Direct. Received wisdom is that every retailer should be multichannel. We don’t buy that. We like being a digital pure-play. It allows us to keep things simple and focus our energy on mobile innovation, which has been a big factor in our record peak trading,” he said.

Shop Direct has its own finance operation that offers shoppers various ways to buy goods on credit. It is spending £50m to come up with more personalised options for customers buying items on credit.

Baldock said that, after a strong performance during the Black Friday discount period, the company was on track to deliver a step-up in sales and profits this year.

“We had a strong Black Friday and didn’t see demand drop off between then and Christmas. Sales have gone off like the clappers in January,” he said.